Compiling PCRE on non-Unix systems
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This document contains the following sections:
General
Generic instructions for the PCRE C library
The C++ wrapper functions
Building for virtual Pascal
Stack size in Windows environments
Linking programs in Windows environments
Comments about Win32 builds
Building PCRE on Windows with CMake
Use of relative paths with CMake on Windows
Testing with runtest.bat
Building under Windows with BCC5.5
Building PCRE on OpenVMS
Building PCRE on Stratus OpenVOS
GENERAL
I (Philip Hazel) have no experience of Windows or VMS sytems and how their
libraries work. The items in the PCRE distribution and Makefile that relate to
anything other than Unix-like systems are untested by me.
There are some other comments and files (including some documentation in CHM
format) in the Contrib directory on the FTP site:
ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/Contrib
If you want to compile PCRE for a non-Unix system (especially for a system that
does not support "configure" and "make" files), note that the basic PCRE
library consists entirely of code written in Standard C, and so should compile
successfully on any system that has a Standard C compiler and library. The C++
wrapper functions are a separate issue (see below).
The PCRE distribution includes a "configure" file for use by the Configure/Make
build system, as found in many Unix-like environments. There is also support
support for CMake, which some users prefer, in particular in Windows
environments. There are some instructions for CMake under Windows in the
section entitled "Building PCRE with CMake" below. CMake can also be used to
build PCRE in Unix-like systems.
GENERIC INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PCRE C LIBRARY
The following are generic comments about building the PCRE C library "by hand".
(1) Copy or rename the file config.h.generic as config.h, and edit the macro
settings that it contains to whatever is appropriate for your environment.
In particular, if you want to force a specific value for newline, you can
define the NEWLINE macro. When you compile any of the PCRE modules, you
must specify -DHAVE_CONFIG_H to your compiler so that config.h is included
in the sources.
An alternative approach is not to edit config.h, but to use -D on the
compiler command line to make any changes that you need to the
configuration options. In this case -DHAVE_CONFIG_H must not be set.
NOTE: There have been occasions when the way in which certain parameters
in config.h are used has changed between releases. (In the configure/make
world, this is handled automatically.) When upgrading to a new release,
you are strongly advised to review config.h.generic before re-using what
you had previously.
(2) Copy or rename the file pcre.h.generic as pcre.h.
(3) EITHER:
Copy or rename file pcre_chartables.c.dist as pcre_chartables.c.
OR:
Compile dftables.c as a stand-alone program (using -DHAVE_CONFIG_H if
you have set up config.h), and then run it with the single argument
"pcre_chartables.c". This generates a set of standard character tables
and writes them to that file. The tables are generated using the default
C locale for your system. If you want to use a locale that is specified
by LC_xxx environment variables, add the -L option to the dftables
command. You must use this method if you are building on a system that
uses EBCDIC code.
The tables in pcre_chartables.c are defaults. The caller of PCRE can
specify alternative tables at run time.
(4) Ensure that you have the following header files:
pcre_internal.h
ucp.h
(5) Also ensure that you have the following file, which is #included as source
when building a debugging version of PCRE, and is also used by pcretest.
pcre_printint.src
(6) Compile the following source files, setting -DHAVE_CONFIG_H as a compiler
option if you have set up config.h with your configuration, or else use
other -D settings to change the configuration as required.
pcre_chartables.c
pcre_compile.c
pcre_config.c
pcre_dfa_exec.c
pcre_exec.c
pcre_fullinfo.c
pcre_get.c
pcre_globals.c
pcre_info.c
pcre_maketables.c
pcre_newline.c
pcre_ord2utf8.c
pcre_refcount.c
pcre_study.c
pcre_tables.c
pcre_try_flipped.c
pcre_ucd.c
pcre_valid_utf8.c
pcre_version.c
pcre_xclass.c
Make sure that you include -I. in the compiler command (or equivalent for
an unusual compiler) so that all included PCRE header files are first
sought in the current directory. Otherwise you run the risk of picking up
a previously-installed file from somewhere else.
(7) Now link all the compiled code into an object library in whichever form
your system keeps such libraries. This is the basic PCRE C library. If
your system has static and shared libraries, you may have to do this once
for each type.
(8) Similarly, compile pcreposix.c (remembering -DHAVE_CONFIG_H if necessary)
and link the result (on its own) as the pcreposix library.
(9) Compile the test program pcretest.c (again, don't forget -DHAVE_CONFIG_H).
This needs the functions in the pcre and pcreposix libraries when linking.
It also needs the pcre_printint.src source file, which it #includes.
(10) Run pcretest on the testinput files in the testdata directory, and check
that the output matches the corresponding testoutput files. Note that the
supplied files are in Unix format, with just LF characters as line
terminators. You may need to edit them to change this if your system uses
a different convention. If you are using Windows, you probably should use
the wintestinput3 file instead of testinput3 (and the corresponding output
file). This is a locale test; wintestinput3 sets the locale to "french"
rather than "fr_FR", and there some minor output differences.
(11) If you want to use the pcregrep command, compile and link pcregrep.c; it
uses only the basic PCRE library (it does not need the pcreposix library).
THE C++ WRAPPER FUNCTIONS
The PCRE distribution also contains some C++ wrapper functions and tests,
contributed by Google Inc. On a system that can use "configure" and "make",
the functions are automatically built into a library called pcrecpp. It should
be straightforward to compile the .cc files manually on other systems. The
files called xxx_unittest.cc are test programs for each of the corresponding
xxx.cc files.
BUILDING FOR VIRTUAL PASCAL
A script for building PCRE using Borland's C++ compiler for use with VPASCAL
was contributed by Alexander Tokarev. Stefan Weber updated the script and added
additional files. The following files in the distribution are for building PCRE
for use with VP/Borland: makevp_c.txt, makevp_l.txt, makevp.bat, pcregexp.pas.
STACK SIZE IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
The default processor stack size of 1Mb in some Windows environments is too
small for matching patterns that need much recursion. In particular, test 2 may
fail because of this. Normally, running out of stack causes a crash, but there
have been cases where the test program has just died silently. See your linker
documentation for how to increase stack size if you experience problems. The
Linux default of 8Mb is a reasonable choice for the stack, though even that can
be too small for some pattern/subject combinations.
PCRE has a compile configuration option to disable the use of stack for
recursion so that heap is used instead. However, pattern matching is
significantly slower when this is done. There is more about stack usage in the
"pcrestack" documentation.
LINKING PROGRAMS IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
If you want to statically link a program against a PCRE library in the form of
a non-dll .a file, you must define PCRE_STATIC before including pcre.h,
otherwise the pcre_malloc() and pcre_free() exported functions will be declared
__declspec(dllimport), with unwanted results.
CALLING CONVENTIONS IN WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS
It is possible to compile programs to use different calling conventions using
MSVC. Search the web for "calling conventions" for more information. To make it
easier to change the calling convention for the exported functions in the
PCRE library, the macro PCRE_CALL_CONVENTION is present in all the external
definitions. It can be set externally when compiling (e.g. in CFLAGS). If it is
not set, it defaults to empty; the default calling convention is then used
(which is what is wanted most of the time).
COMMENTS ABOUT WIN32 BUILDS (see also "BUILDING PCRE WITH CMAKE" below)
There are two ways of building PCRE using the "configure, make, make install"
paradigm on Windows systems: using MinGW or using Cygwin. These are not at all
the same thing; they are completely different from each other. There is also
support for building using CMake, which some users find a more straightforward
way of building PCRE under Windows. However, the tests are not run
automatically when CMake is used.
The MinGW home page (http://www.mingw.org/) says this:
MinGW: A collection of freely available and freely distributable Windows
specific header files and import libraries combined with GNU toolsets that
allow one to produce native Windows programs that do not rely on any
3rd-party C runtime DLLs.
The Cygwin home page (http://www.cygwin.com/) says this:
Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
. A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing
substantial Linux API functionality
. A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel.
The Cygwin DLL currently works with all recent, commercially released x86 32
bit and 64 bit versions of Windows, with the exception of Windows CE.
On both MinGW and Cygwin, PCRE should build correctly using:
./configure && make && make install
This should create two libraries called libpcre and libpcreposix, and, if you
have enabled building the C++ wrapper, a third one called libpcrecpp. These are
independent libraries: when you like with libpcreposix or libpcrecpp you must
also link with libpcre, which contains the basic functions. (Some earlier
releases of PCRE included the basic libpcre functions in libpcreposix. This no
longer happens.)
A user submitted a special-purpose patch that makes it easy to create
"pcre.dll" under mingw32 using the "msys" environment. It provides "pcre.dll"
as a special target. If you use this target, no other files are built, and in
particular, the pcretest and pcregrep programs are not built. An example of how
this might be used is:
./configure --enable-utf --disable-cpp CFLAGS="-03 -s"; make pcre.dll
Using Cygwin's compiler generates libraries and executables that depend on
cygwin1.dll. If a library that is generated this way is distributed,
cygwin1.dll has to be distributed as well. Since cygwin1.dll is under the GPL
licence, this forces not only PCRE to be under the GPL, but also the entire
application. A distributor who wants to keep their own code proprietary must
purchase an appropriate Cygwin licence.
MinGW has no such restrictions. The MinGW compiler generates a library or
executable that can run standalone on Windows without any third party dll or
licensing issues.
But there is more complication:
If a Cygwin user uses the -mno-cygwin Cygwin gcc flag, what that really does is
to tell Cygwin's gcc to use the MinGW gcc. Cygwin's gcc is only acting as a
front end to MinGW's gcc (if you install Cygwin's gcc, you get both Cygwin's
gcc and MinGW's gcc). So, a user can:
. Build native binaries by using MinGW or by getting Cygwin and using
-mno-cygwin.
. Build binaries that depend on cygwin1.dll by using Cygwin with the normal
compiler flags.
The test files that are supplied with PCRE are in Unix format, with LF
characters as line terminators. It may be necessary to change the line
terminators in order to get some of the tests to work. We hope to improve
things in this area in future.
BUILDING PCRE ON WINDOWS WITH CMAKE
CMake is an alternative configuration facility that can be used instead of the
traditional Unix "configure". CMake creates project files (make files, solution
files, etc.) tailored to numerous development environments, including Visual
Studio, Borland, Msys, MinGW, NMake, and Unix. The following instructions
were contributed by a PCRE user.
1. Install the latest CMake version available from http://www.cmake.org/, and
ensure that cmake\bin is on your path.
2. Unzip (retaining folder structure) the PCRE source tree into a source
directory such as C:\pcre.
3. Create a new, empty build directory, for example C:\pcre\build\
4. Run cmake-gui from the Shell envirornment of your build tool, for example,
Msys for Msys/MinGW or Visual Studio Command Prompt for VC/VC++.
5. Enter C:\pcre\pcre-xx and C:\pcre\build for the source and build
directories, respectively.
6. Hit the "Configure" button.
7. Select the particular IDE / build tool that you are using (Visual
Studio, MSYS makefiles, MinGW makefiles, etc.)
8. The GUI will then list several configuration options. This is where
you can enable UTF-8 support or other PCRE optional features.
9. Hit "Configure" again. The adjacent "Generate" button should now be
active.
10. Hit "Generate".
11. The build directory should now contain a usable build system, be it a
solution file for Visual Studio, makefiles for MinGW, etc. Exit from
cmake-gui and use the generated build system with your compiler or IDE.
USE OF RELATIVE PATHS WITH CMAKE ON WINDOWS
A PCRE user comments as follows:
I thought that others may want to know the current state of
CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS support on Windows.
Here it is:
-- AdditionalIncludeDirectories is only partially modified (only the
first path - see below)
-- Only some of the contained file paths are modified - shown below for
pcre.vcproj
-- It properly modifies
I am sure CMake people can fix that if they want to. Until then one will
need to replace existing absolute paths in project files with relative
paths manually (e.g. from VS) - relative to project file location. I did
just that before being told to try CMAKE_USE_RELATIVE_PATHS. Not a big
deal.
AdditionalIncludeDirectories="E:\builds\pcre\build;E:\builds\pcre\pcre-7.5;"
AdditionalIncludeDirectories=".;E:\builds\pcre\pcre-7.5;"
RelativePath="pcre.h">
RelativePath="pcre_chartables.c">
RelativePath="pcre_chartables.c.rule">
TESTING WITH RUNTEST.BAT
1. Copy RunTest.bat into the directory where pcretest.exe has been created.
2. Edit RunTest.bat and insert a line that indentifies the relative location of
the pcre source, e.g.:
set srcdir=..\pcre-7.4-RC3
3. Run RunTest.bat from a command shell environment. Test outputs will
automatically be compared to expected results, and discrepancies will
identified in the console output.
4. To test pcrecpp, run pcrecpp_unittest.exe, pcre_stringpiece_unittest.exe and
pcre_scanner_unittest.exe.
BUILDING UNDER WINDOWS WITH BCC5.5
Michael Roy sent these comments about building PCRE under Windows with BCC5.5:
Some of the core BCC libraries have a version of PCRE from 1998 built in,
which can lead to pcre_exec() giving an erroneous PCRE_ERROR_NULL from a
version mismatch. I'm including an easy workaround below, if you'd like to
include it in the non-unix instructions:
When linking a project with BCC5.5, pcre.lib must be included before any of
the libraries cw32.lib, cw32i.lib, cw32mt.lib, and cw32mti.lib on the command
line.
BUILDING UNDER WINDOWS CE WITH VISUAL STUDIO 200x
Vincent Richomme sent a zip archive of files to help with this process. They
can be found in the file "pcre-vsbuild.zip" in the Contrib directory of the FTP
site.
BUILDING PCRE ON OPENVMS
Dan Mooney sent the following comments about building PCRE on OpenVMS. They
relate to an older version of PCRE that used fewer source files, so the exact
commands will need changing. See the current list of source files above.
"It was quite easy to compile and link the library. I don't have a formal
make file but the attached file [reproduced below] contains the OpenVMS DCL
commands I used to build the library. I had to add #define
POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD 10 to pcre.h since it was not defined anywhere.
The library was built on:
O/S: HP OpenVMS v7.3-1
Compiler: Compaq C v6.5-001-48BCD
Linker: vA13-01
The test results did not match 100% due to the issues you mention in your
documentation regarding isprint(), iscntrl(), isgraph() and ispunct(). I
modified some of the character tables temporarily and was able to get the
results to match. Tests using the fr locale did not match since I don't have
that locale loaded. The study size was always reported to be 3 less than the
value in the standard test output files."
=========================
$! This DCL procedure builds PCRE on OpenVMS
$!
$! I followed the instructions in the non-unix-use file in the distribution.
$!
$ COMPILE == "CC/LIST/NOMEMBER_ALIGNMENT/PREFIX_LIBRARY_ENTRIES=ALL_ENTRIES
$ COMPILE DFTABLES.C
$ LINK/EXE=DFTABLES.EXE DFTABLES.OBJ
$ RUN DFTABLES.EXE/OUTPUT=CHARTABLES.C
$ COMPILE MAKETABLES.C
$ COMPILE GET.C
$ COMPILE STUDY.C
$! I had to set POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD to 10 in PCRE.H since the symbol
$! did not seem to be defined anywhere.
$! I edited pcre.h and added #DEFINE SUPPORT_UTF8 to enable UTF8 support.
$ COMPILE PCRE.C
$ LIB/CREATE PCRE MAKETABLES.OBJ, GET.OBJ, STUDY.OBJ, PCRE.OBJ
$! I had to set POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD to 10 in PCRE.H since the symbol
$! did not seem to be defined anywhere.
$ COMPILE PCREPOSIX.C
$ LIB/CREATE PCREPOSIX PCREPOSIX.OBJ
$ COMPILE PCRETEST.C
$ LINK/EXE=PCRETEST.EXE PCRETEST.OBJ, PCRE/LIB, PCREPOSIX/LIB
$! C programs that want access to command line arguments must be
$! defined as a symbol
$ PCRETEST :== "$ SYS$ROADSUSERS:[DMOONEY.REGEXP]PCRETEST.EXE"
$! Arguments must be enclosed in quotes.
$ PCRETEST "-C"
$! Test results:
$!
$! The test results did not match 100%. The functions isprint(), iscntrl(),
$! isgraph() and ispunct() on OpenVMS must not produce the same results
$! as the system that built the test output files provided with the
$! distribution.
$!
$! The study size did not match and was always 3 less on OpenVMS.
$!
$! Locale could not be set to fr
$!
=========================
BUILDING PCRE ON STRATUS OPENVOS
These notes on the port of PCRE to VOS (lightly edited) were supplied by
Ashutosh Warikoo, whose email address has the local part awarikoo and the
domain nse.co.in. The port was for version 7.9 in August 2009.
1. Building PCRE
I built pcre on OpenVOS Release 17.0.1at using GNU Tools 3.4a without any
problems. I used the following packages to build PCRE:
ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/posix/ga/posix.save.evf.gz
Please read and follow the instructions that come with these packages. To start
the build of pcre, from the root of the package type:
./build.sh
2. Installing PCRE
Once you have successfully built PCRE, login to the SysAdmin group, switch to
the root user, and type
[ !create_dir (master_disk)>usr --if needed ]
[ !create_dir (master_disk)>usr>local --if needed ]
!gmake install
This installs PCRE and its man pages into /usr/local. You can add
(master_disk)>usr>local>bin to your command search paths, or if you are in
BASH, add /usr/local/bin to the PATH environment variable.
4. Restrictions
This port requires readline library optionally. However during the build I
faced some yet unexplored errors while linking with readline. As it was an
optional component I chose to disable it.
5. Known Problems
I ran a the test suite, but you will have to be your own judge of whether this
command, and this port, suits your purposes. If you find any problems that
appear to be related to the port itself, please let me know. Please see the
build.log file in the root of the package also.
=========================
Last Updated: 09 September 2009
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